


Who Swallow All Truths and Spit Out Only Lies

by Encyclopediac



Category: Kill Six Billion Demons (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Internal Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 03:31:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13045587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Encyclopediac/pseuds/Encyclopediac
Summary: And he knew it was a clever trick by the King, who could never truly leave the pit, to get him to take that flame to the surface world, where it would burn forever.





	Who Swallow All Truths and Spit Out Only Lies

> “Deep in Sanctum there is said to dwell a kind of monster, a basilisk of sorts. One look at it is said to drive men mad, not because its visage is especially horrifying, but because its flesh is a kind of mirror, and in it a man sees his true and full measure for the first time.”

Fuck the world and burn it down. Isn’t that what the prime rule is? Some people say “reach heaven through violence.” Meti, may her cracked and crumbling heart burn for another thousand thousand ages, said “the sanctioned action is to Cut.” But that’s just another way of saying fuck the multiverse and everything in it. From fire we come, to fire we eventually return. Hail YS and UN, white fire and black fire and all that complete load of bollocks. All I want is to see the demiurges dance to my merry tune until their burned and weeping flesh falls off their bones. I’ll be right there dancing beside them. 

Mammon, Jadis, Jagganoth, Mottom, Solomon David, Gog-Agog. You can’t tempt with power the ones who already have it, unless, of course, you can trick them into thinking you have more of it, and it’s more worthwhile to keep you alive than kill you. A tricky tightrope walk, to be sure, but not completely undoable. No, not at all undoable. They all think they have the secret to the ultimate power, these keys with their combined powers that let us breathe devastation and bestow upon our favored ones a hundred tiny perfect deaths so that they come crawling back for more and more until their bloated bodies fall apart on the bridges of our demesnes. 

But Mottom, oh Nadia, my sweet little girl in her grown-up body, playing grown-up games like we haven’t seen her maiden-mother-crone trick a gazillion trick, she doesn’t actually want power. She wants freedom, and there’s no freedom in power, only an endless void of hunger. Her late husband could have told her that. I thought about offering her that freedom wrapped around a slave bracelet, but I don’t think I could stand her belly-aching. And besides, Allison, who is driving this happy little band of troublemakers straight into the void, did that so much more beautifully, in her naive, burningly honest way. She walked up to Mother Om, opened her mouth, and incinerated any hope Nadia might possibly have left about cutting herself free from her own voracious hunger.

I can honestly say that was the first point where I thought there might be more to this little dalliance with our new Rising King, this Kill Six Billion Demons, Jadis so charmingly named. And, sure, there’s another so-called-successor hidden away in Mammon’s constantly unfolding cube of horrors, if Allison wants to dig deep enough, cut away enough of herself and carry my flame as deep into those dragony crevices as she can go. But when she finds him, what do you think will happen? She’ll pawn the key off onto another poor sucker, maybe someone who doesn’t hate himself so much that all it took was a little boot to the ass to splinter off a little Allison-Incubus darling personality that rages with both our hungers? Maybe. But I doubt it. It’s not just my sick white flame but the one she wears on her forehead that will never stop burning until all that’s left is a hunger for more fuel. No, no. She’s here to stay with all the power of the old King, no matter how much my six compatriots squabble over how to bring about her downfall.

And squabble they must. Maybe someone will take quarrel with my choice of words (my secretary, who is also me, says I should pick my words more carefully. So I threw her in a pit of vipers.) Besides, I think squabble is absolutely right for this petty power play of Jagganoth’s. Sure, he’s brilliant-- the best tactician the multiverse has seen since the days of Zoss. A thirty foot tall, unkillable monstrosity with millenia under his belt, sorcery out his fucking ass, and probably the worst attitude of anyone I’ve ever met. I like him. He wants to kill the rest of us, take the Master Key sweet Allison wears on her brow and then, probably, wear our heads on his crown. That’s fine, it’s fine. Refreshingly open about how much he hates us all and would happily crush us if we didn’t work together to keep him suppressed. Which is, of course, why I’m perfectly willing to give him the little boost he needs. Why set the world on fire myself when there’s someone so happy to do it for me? 

The best tactician the multiverse has seen in ages, but when you’re blinded by your own belligerence towards creation? You can be led like a horse to the trough, and you’ll drink your fill of the sickly flame. Especially! When he keeps _underestimating_ me. He and the others. They see me as a usurper, the little king, only interested in the flash and dazzle of power, gorging myself with lust. And her too, the one whose kingdom I’ve inherited, that fat old goat. Murder the Gods and Topple Their Thrones. The first one whose skin will crackle and peel apart like a suckling pig when Jagganoth drags us all kicking and screaming right back down the the abyss from whence all us horrific violent fuckers came.

And, oh, Allison is such a lovely little trump card. Keep your eyes on the cards, follow the queen, and then argue about which card is which until Jagganoth slights your throats and grinds your worlds into dust. Allison is powerful, but she’s a distraction right now. 

She could be more than that-- I want her to be more than that, I want her to surprise me, the Old King only knows how long it has been since someone has willingly taken my power and then actually surprised me with what they do with it. In the end it will come down to her and Jagganoth, and even odds on who comes out the winner in that little contest. Either Jagganoth crushes her with his fists and breaks her on his spiked wheel, or she’ll find a damn backbone in that awful dreamscape, tear it out of herself and use it to throttle him. 

Either way, the multiverse is fucking doomed and I am _here for it._


End file.
